Air
by MillyVeil
Summary: With an odd kind of detachment Clint realizes that this might be it. He might die here, at the hands of people who are not even trying to get information from him. He might die because they are bored. [capture, torture, asphyxiation, PTSD, flashback, nightmares, angst, h/c]
1. Chapter 1

_Absolutely gratuitous Clint-whump. Seriously, guys. Gra-tu-i-tous. Written as a response to the following prompt over at LJ's Avengerskink: [Clint] is held captive - in a prison or somewhere else, I'll leave that up to you - and his guards/captors are bored so they decide to play breath games with him. Just for kicks, not for interrogation purposes. No matter how BAMF of an assassin and agent someone is, that's GOTTA be absolutely terrifying. Mouth and nose covered by hands, soemthing tightened around the neck, predicament bondage with a breathplay touch, whatever you can come up with, go for it. Oh, actually, please, no plastic bags over the head or mouth. That for some reason freaks me the freak out. No death fic. I like my Clint alive :)_

 **Air**

by MillyVeil

They make him crawl. They make him cross the cold floor on scraped up hands and knees, dragging his shivering self from one side of the room to the other, from one tormentor to the other. Clint doesn't fight it any longer, he's long past that kind of defiance. The only thing left is surviving. The next minute. The next second.

He pulls himself forward. He has to keep moving. If he stops they'll hurt him. They'll hurt him anyway, he knows that, but not until he reaches the other side of the room. It's not much, but the time it takes for him to cross the floor is all the rest he gets. He's learned the hard way that stalling too much means the rest is cancelled. The lessons about refusing or fighting had been even harder. He can't even hope to escape into oblivion if he fights back, they have proved too good at this to let him slip into unconsciousness for more than a few moments at the time.

As soon as they had stepped in and the door had locked behind them, Clint had known with every cell of his being that these two were infinitely more dangerous than the steroid inflated assholes who had dragged him down the hallway for questioning the previous night, the ones who had taken turns beating him when he didn't answer the questions. These two guys are different. Calm. Unhurried. Moving with the kind of fluid casualness that makes him think of prowling Dobermanns. They're the real deal. Highly trained. Highly dangerous.

They're _him_.

But there has been no questions, no interrogation and the guy had smiled pleasantly when he told Clint they were just passing time. Surely Clint could sympathize with wanting to alleviate boredom.

Quite simply, he's entertainment, so on second thought, no, they're not him.

A boot gives his side a brutal push, and he loses what precious balance he has left. He topples over on his side, and the pain in his head surges up again. Nausea rolls up right behind, and please, no, he doesn't want to throw up, his skull is going to break open, he's sure of it. It hurts so bad. He presses his cheek against the cool floor. He wants to stay down. He wants to close his eyes and go away, not wake up until he's somewhere that's not here. But he's not allowed that. He forces himself to lift his head. Two is standing over him. Clint calls him Two in his head, because number One, the alpha here, is the other guy, the one sitting on the metal construction that has served as Clint's bed for the past two days or so.

Two reaches down and grabs Clint, pulls him up to his knees. He silently supports Clint until he manages to get his shaking hands and knees under himself. He gets a shove that almost sends him down again, but he manages to stay up. He moves one hand. Then the other. By now coordination is something that happens to other people and his movements are jerky and out of synch. He keeps going. He has no choice.

Every move brings him closer to One, and when Clint all too soon reaches him, the angry hiss in his head has turned high-pitched and loud.

He stops just out of reach.

"Closer."

Clint inches closer. Play the game, his tactical side whispers. Stay alive. Don't give them a reason to kill you, every minute is another minute for SHIELD to find you and get you out of this hell.

"Don't make me tell you again." One's voice is even, but the unspoken threat is as plain as anything. There's a touch of Virginia in the words. North Carolina, maybe.

Clint drags himself forward until his shoulder touch One's leg. The contact makes his throat go tight. He knows what's coming.

Play the game. Play the game. Play the game.

"Good boy."

Seconds drag by, and all he hears is his own ragged breathing. Then One's hands are on his shoulders, and sudenly there's s no reasoning with the surge of panic that breaks out from under his crumbling self-control.

He topples over and scrambles away blindly, because no, he can't, he can't, not again, but it's useless, he's too uncoordinated, too weak, too dizzy, and One grabs his ankle, hauls him back with horrible ease. The panic is bright and sharp like a knife, and Clint kicks out, tries to find something to hold onto, but his world starts tilting and spinning, and for a few nauseating seconds his brain doesn't know what's up and what's down. When gravity starts behaving again One has pulled him back and around. He's slumped with his back pressed against the metal bed frame, bracketed claustrophobically by One's legs. There's no escaping this.

He squeezes his eyes tightly shut when fingers start running through the hair at his ear and continue up towards his temple.

"You're all sweaty, baby."

The gentleness is a sickening contrast to what One is about to do, and Clint is so fucked up he wants to cry. He wants out. He wants to go home. Please. Coulson. Natasha. _Someone_.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of you. I'll take real good care of you."

One's arm comes around from behind and Clint twists weakly, tries to break the grip.

"Shh," One soothes. "It's okay. You're okay."

Clint makes a desperate, wheezing noise. He's not okay, not at all okay, because there's agonizing pressure against his throat. More. And more. He fights, tries to find leverage against the floor, but it's of no use. Stop. Please, stop. The air he is allowed now isn't enough, isn't near enough. Stop. Stopstopstop. A fractured, gurgling noise is squeezed out of him, and then there's no air at all to be had. The arm forces his head backwards. All he sees is the stained ceiling.

One's breath is warm and steady against Clint's ear. "Stop fighting," he says, but it's like telling fire not to burn.

Clint's lungs scream for air, shrill and desperate. He can't breathe. He needs to breathe. Please. Please. Please. Sparks fire up in front of his eyes like sickly fireflies, and he can't breathe he needs to breathe breathe breathe he needs to breathe. He claws at the arm around his throat, but Gray nothingness starts eating away at his vision, and little by little his limbs go heavy and wooden, his movements slowing.

He's skimming the surface of true unconsciousness when One finally lets up on the pressure slightly and Clint is allowed air again. He sucks it down, grateful and despairing, because he knows it means he'll be told to start crawling again. Means it all starts again.

But One doesn't let go. He keeps the arm loosely across Clint's throat for an eternity, then starts tightening it again. Slow. Relentless. Clint can't help the raspy wail. No. Please. It's not fair, he's playing along, they can't change the rules like this. They _can't_.

But of course they can. One applies more horrible pressure. Clint's body feels numb and heavy, his fingers aren't moving like they should, but the need to fight is hard-wired, impossible to override, and he tries so hard. It doesn't make one bit of difference and again his air is cut off and he's dragged skillfully to the very edge of unconsciousness. Once again he's pulled back at the last moment and allowed a few, all too insufficient breaths. His head is filling with crackling static that grows and grows, and when the arm across his throat starts tightening a third time, he barely manages to get his hands up to pull at it. His limbs are moving slowly, jerking in fits and starts, and Clint dimly realizes that the game might be over. He might die here, at the hands of two sadists who are not even trying to get information from him. He might die because they are bored.

But he doesn't die.

He emerges from the darkness he hadn't even realized he'd sunk into with a gasp that morphs into a raspy, violent cough. He lies on the cold ground and chokes on the huge gulps of air his lungs demand. He's been without air for so long it feels like his body has forgotten how to breathe. He curls up around himself as he coughs and retches, wraps his hands around his throat, protecting it, covering, hiding. He's cold, so cold his teeth are chattering, and for a moment he's outside Slobozia again, cut up and sick and alone, holed up in an abandoned house in mid-February, waiting for an extraction that never showed.

"Come here," Two says, and Romania vanishes. Clint is back on the floor by One's boots.

He curls up tighter and shakes his head without lifting it from the floor. He can't do it.

"Come. Here."

One nudges Clint with his boot. "Move, or I'll do it again, right now, and I don't think you want that."

Clint knows he makes a wet sound of despair. He doesn't want to cross the cold floor again, desperately doesn't want to, but somehow he manages to get to his hands and knees. He's shaking so bad he almost can't hold himself up.

"Know what," One says and pats Clint's shoulder amicably. "You've been so good, I think you've earned walking privileges." He slips an arm under Clint's and helps him up. The whole world slides sideways again and One has to catch him to keep him from falling over. He keeps Clint upright until he can stand on his own, then dusts him off and turns him towards his companion. Two is still on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall.

He beckons Clint over with his finger. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

The room keeps going in and out of focus. The floor looks five miles across. Clint wishes it was.

One gives him a gentle push in the back and Clint stumbles forward. One step. One more. One more. He's halfway when dizzy turns into vertigo and his knees hit the ground again. The room around him feels distant. He feels distant. His tormentors wait in silence for him to get up. He makes it on the third attempt. Barely.

Again Clint stops just outside of reach, it's all the defiance he's got left, and again he's told to move closer. Apparently he's too slow, because Two grabs him and casually bounces his face off the wall. Clint's legs buckle and he slides down to the floor again, tasting blood. He prefers this guy. Pain is something he's well acquainted with. The pretense of gentleness that One pours over him is a foreign thing.

"Get up."

Clint puts his hand against the wall for balance, but slips and goes down again. Two drags him up by his hair, then digs painfully strong fingers dig in under Clint's jaw and backs him straight into the wall. Two looks down at him. He's almost as tall as Thor.

"Put you hands down."

It's almost impossible, but Clint manages to get his fingers to releases their grip on Two's wrist. He knows countless ways of breaking free of a hold like this, but he's too weak now to stand any chance of succeeding. The last time he tried and failed, Two had put him down on the ground with ease and showed Clint just how little he appreciated it. The rope that he'd wrapped around Clint's neck still lies by his feet.

Two leans in and tilts Clint's face up. "What should we do next?"

Clint's brain stalls out when the fingers tighten painfully around his bruised throat. Two gives him a shake. "I'm being magnanimous here. What should we do next?" When Clint still can't get a word out, he rolls his eyes. "Okay. I'll make it easy on you and give you a choice. You can either go to my good friend over there and let him take care of you again, or you can stay with me and let me re-introduce you to that rope."

Clint knows what they're doing. _Let_ Two use the rope, or _let_ One choke him out. It would feel so much easier if the choice was taken from him, if it was all on them. It _is_ all on them, he knows that, but in the moment, it's hard to ignore that he's about to become an active participant in his own torture.

"Better pick," One tells him from across the room. "Or you'll get both, plus something else. Something new and exciting."

"Last chance."

"Him," Clint manages to get out, his voice just a scratchy wheeze. His mind is wailing in horrified protest, but he still chooses One, because not the rope, no, it's- it's- No.

Two releases him. "Okay. Off you go. Knees."

Clint's more or less falls down. Hot wetness starts running down his nose, dripping onto the ground as he makes his slow and clumsy way towards the torture of his very own choice.

Play the game. Stay alive. They'll find him and get him out of here. They have to.

Far too soon he reaches One and he stops just out of reach again. One reaches over and pulls him in. There's nothing of Two's violence in what he does, he just settles Clint in front of him, back to front, and wipes at his face with the the flat of his palm. Then he hikes Clint closer, and the arm comes around again. Clint doesn't know he manages it, he can barely lift his hands, but somehow he manages to twist and struggle enough that the bruising pressure eases up a fraction. It's a cruel, one-second flare of hope that's extinguished when One reclaims the grip without difficulty. As Clint's air is once again cut off, the analytical part of his brain that's still clinging to existence tells him it's probably what One had in mind all along. Give him just a hint of hope that he can escape, then snuff it out.

Without warning, One stands up. He doesn't let go, simply pulls Clint with him. Clint hangs from the punishing grip around his neck, scrabbling to get his feet under himself, but for a few horrible seconds his own body weight is added to the pressure. Somehow he manages to get up, but then One leans backwards and Clint's back arches painfully. He loses the last semblance of balance and topples sideways. This time he knows, he just _knows_ he won't get up.

He claws at One with hands and fingers that obey him less and less with every second. Emptiness starts pushing at the edges of his vision again, and his ears are filling with the noise of a thousand hornets. One shifts the way he's distributing the pressure, targets the carotid arteries rather than just the airways, and Clint has time to feel a twisted kind of relief.

Then he just... goes away.

'* '* '*

Light.

Shadows.

Odd edges and angles.

Clint gasps and coughs, tries to suck in as much air as he can. He doesn't know what's going on, just that everything is _wrong_. His breath hitches and stalls, and he's twitching erratically against the floor. His body feels alien, doesn't feel like his own. Air. He needs air. The panic rises, tears at him with jagged nails that draw blood. God, he needs more air, he needs to breathe, to run, to, to, to… he doesn't know, but he has to do something.

His lungs finally allows him another breath, then another, and slowly the ringing in his head recedes a little. It takes a while to realize he hears someone talking. The voice is distorted, far away. Then suddenly it's close, and Clint tries to curl up, but his shaking limbs won't obey. Don't. Please, don't. He sees blurry movement, but he can't make out what it is. His eyes won't focus right. Then someone leans close and Clint cracks his head against the floor in his flailing attempt to get away. He doesn't get far before hands are on him, holding him in place. The proximity is suffocating, he can't breathe, he feels like he's- feels like-

"Easy." A hand cradles the back of his aching head.

The room suddenly spins around Clint. He fumbles for something to anchor him, because it feels like he's falling off the floor. A warm hand wraps around his just as the nausea rises in his stomach again. It's massive and merciless, and this time Clint has no say in the matter, the only thing he can do is turn his head as he throws up. Someone helps him to his side, holds him until he's done. It's mostly water and the remains of a power bar, but it burns, it burns so bad coming up. It feels like his throat is being sliced by razor blades.

There's a hand on his shoulder, just resting lightly. Warm.

"Phil?" His voice is barely there.

"It's okay. Take it easy."

Clint is carefully guided from his side onto his back, then rolled over onto his other side, well clear of the mess he made on the floor. "You can rest, now." His limbs are arranged into something that resembles the recovery position. A hand runs gently over his forehead.

"Wouldn't want you too tired for our next play date."


	2. Chapter 2

Seven grams of an explosive compound that doesn't officially exist, and the lock is no more. In the greenish light of her night-vision goggles, Natasha watches the point man kick the door wide open and get out of the way. Another agent goes to one knee on the ground to the right of the door frame. He sticks his head in and scans the corridor, weapon at his shoulder, ready to take out anything that moves inside.

"Clear," he calls and motions the Strike team forward.

They file by her, not bothering to keep their movements silent any longer. Breaching a door with a shaped charge makes stealth a moot point. Natasha stays at the back of the pack. Her presence here is a courtesy.

The corridor is lined with doors, some open, some closed, some locked. The team splits up, one group staying in the corridor, the other continuing forward. Singer shrugs his pack off by the first locked door. She pulls her goggles off as he turns his flashlight on and puts it on the floor by his boots. The low angle of light throws long, black shadows after the team that's moving away.

She glances back the way they came. Two agents are already crouching by the door they blasted through, covering the blind corner beyond it. She knows she doesn't really have to check, the teams are well trained, but it's instinct to watch her back.

Singer and the guy whose name she can never remember set the small charges, working quickly and silently in the near darkness. Gunshots and shouting are heard from deeper into the compound, but it's not close, not an immediate threat.

"Ready?" Singer asks.

Natasha nods.

"Fire in the hole!" he shouts and the call is daisy-chained down the hallway. Natasha turns and puts her hands over her ears.

Boom. Room one is empty.

Boom. Room two is empty.

Boom. Room three isn't.

"Asset located," Singer says into his comm.

Natasha waits until Singer has secured the room, made sure there are no hostiles in there, but the moment he gives the all clear signal, she's inside. The room is dark, the light on the barrel of Singer's assault rifle is all there is in there. He is already kneeling next to Clint who is curled up on the floor by the far wall. He isn't moving, and Natasha's breath catches for a moment. Singer pulls one glove off with his teeth and puts his fingers against Clint's neck. Clint flinches into life with a fractured, ragged sound, and Natasha is on the floor next to Singer so fast she skins her knees.

Clint's arms are raised in front of his face defensively. His breath hitches and wheezes. Natasha exchanges a look with Singer. He gets to his feet without a word, and takes up a position by the door, a silent, unmovable sentinel.

She counts slowly to five.

"Barton?"

At first there's no recognition in his eyes as he stares up at her from behind his arms. Then he blinks, and he's there, Clint is there.

"Natasha?" he rasps. He lowers his arms stiffly.

Her smile feels forced. "That's my name. Don't wear it out." It's an old thing between them, a poke at the purposely awful jokes Clint tells her all the time. This time he doesn't smile.

Someone apparently found a light switch outside, because suddenly the room is bathing in light. Clint winces. Natasha bites down on the curse that rises to her lips, because there's blood in the whites of his eyes, and the skin under them is a dull ruddy color. Bruising around his throat. Scratches on his face and neck.

She knows what this is.

Clint draws a wobbly breath and lets his head fall back to the floor like he's too weak to hold it up. An angrily red ligature mark snakes around his neck, and the tightness in Natasha coils into something cold and dangerous. Anyone in this goddamn bunker who isn't wearing SHIELD black is going to die if she gets her hands on them, and Fury can go fuck himself if he has a problem with it.

But that's going to have to wait. She reluctantly pushes the anger down, it's of no use in here. Of no use to Clint. She starts cataloguing the rest of his visible injuries. What she can see is minor, but she knows appearances can be deceiving. Scrapes, bruises, a fat lip, and there are signs of a recent nose bleed. It must have been bleeding while he was lying down, because a drying trail runs from his nose to his ear and disappears into his hair. Clint starts to say something, but his voice breaks and he starts coughing drily. It apparently hurts, because he makes a thin sound of pain.

Then there's noise in the corridor outside, running and voices. Singer doesn't move, which means it's friendlies. The medics. But Clint makes a horrible, strangled noise and starts struggling to get his hands and knees under himself.

"Clint—" She puts his hand on his arm, but he recoils from it, backs right into the wall.

"No, I don't want— I don't—"

"It's just the medics, Barton," she reassures him. "They'll take care of you."

He goes small and scared in front of her. "No," he moans.

Natasha's stomach clenches at the sound. "Clint—"

"No. I'll move, I'll— Please, I'll do it." His teeth start chattering.

"Singer," she says over her shoulder, and it's all she has to say. A second later loud protests are heard from the approaching medics, which means he has placed his six-foot six self in their path.

"I think we need to give Agent Barton a little space here, ladies and gentlemen."

Natasha sits back on her heels, places her hands flat on her thighs. Non-threatening.

"Clint. They're not going to hurt you. I won't let them."

He holds himself still, head low, frozen on his hands and knees. She can see the muscles in his arms trembling.

"It's just you and me here. You're safe."

Nothing.

"Come on, Barton," she coaxes gently. "Olly olly oxen free."

It takes about ten seconds, then she sees the first signs that he's coming back to himself. It's a minute change in the lines of his shoulders, in the way he holds his head. His breathing slows a little. The trembling doesn't stop, but it diminishes. When he pushes back to sit on his heels, hunched over, hands still flat on the floor, she knows he's back. Partially, at least. He starts coughing.

"Hey there," she says quietly when it tapers out.

"I don't want to crawl anymore," he mumbles thickly. He doesn't lift his head. "Natasha. I don't want to."

The anger inside her is so cold it burns. "No one here will make you crawl, Clint. I swear. Anyone who tries will regret it until they die. Which will be about three seconds later."

She helps him sit back up and steadies him when he starts listing. He leans heavily against her side.

They sit in silence on the cold floor. The shooting further inside the compound has stopped. Clint's scratchy breath shudders every now and again, but some of the tension is bleeding out of him.

"Feel better?" she asks when her knees start to hurt from the hard floor.

He turns his face into her jacket. "Not really." When Natasha glances down she gets a close-up look at the rope burn on his neck. "Tired," he mumbles.

She rests her chin against the top of his head. "I know."

She does. She's been where he is.

There's a rustle behind her, and Natasha looks over her shoulder. Singer has taken up his position in the doorway again. He's looking as grim as she feels. Clint must have felt her shift, because he lifts his head. He blinks like the light is bothering him, and then his eyes settle on Singer. Natasha is not surprised at seeing agent Barton slide in. It's not the smooth, seamless transition she's used to, and it's a pretty pathetic agent that shows up, but for now the Clint only she gets to see is gone.

"Hey there, Big Ugly," Agent-Clint rasps out. He sits up a fraction, doesn't lean quite as much on her.

"Please, I'm prettier than you will ever be."

Natasha shakes her head sadly. "Delusional," she stage-whispers to Clint.

"Your vote doesn't count, Romanoff. You're desensitized from prolonged exposure." Singer rests his forearms casually against the rifle slung across his front. It's a deceptively relaxed pose, but Natasha sees the tension underneath. He's worried, too.

Then something apparently happens on the comms, because his eyes flit to the side and he goes distant the way people do when listening to something. He gives an acknowledgment, then turns back to Natasha.

"Don't know about you kids, but I'm pretty damn done with this dump. You ready to hit the road?"

Clint snorts at 'kids', but it apparently hurts, because he winces. Then winces when the wince hurts. His hand comes up to his throat.

Natasha helps him scoot back to lean against the wall. "Will you let them look you over? You know how twitchy they get if they don't get their daily dose of poking and prodding."

Clint closes his eyes. He clears his throat. "Yeah, sure."

Singer says something over his shoulder and a second later three medics are on the doorstep. Natasha watches Singer catch one of them by the arm and pull him over a little. It's a young man, and he looks suitably intimidated by being shanghaied by 220 pounds of heavily armed muscle, all kitted out in black Strike gear. Singer leans in, and Natasha suspects he's imparting a short but important list of dos and don'ts when treating an injured field agent who has been subjected to god knows what, and who knows how to kill a person seventeen ways with his bare hands.

Not that she thinks it's likely that Clint will lash out here and now, he doesn't seem to be in that head space. And they've never counted, but she's pretty sure Clint knows more than seventeen ways.

Natasha takes a spot at the wall and lets them work. The team leader swings her pack off her shoulder and kneels in front of Clint. She introduces herself as Carson, and Natasha watches her eyes flit over the bleeding in his eyes and the mark on his neck. They're hard to miss. In the next breath Carson orders the kid closer and instructs him to immobilize Clint's head. Natasha feels cold. She hadn't thought of neck injuries. There hadn't been anyone to tend to her who knew a damn about things like that.

"I'm fine," Clint mumbles. "No broken neck. Promise."

"Humor me, okay," Carson says. "Breathing feels okay?"

"Yeah."

She turns and takes the neck brace her colleague hands her. She shows it to Clint. "You gonna be okay if I put this on?"

Clint tries to nod, but the kid's hold prevents much movement. The newbie looks so nervous that in another situation it would have been amusing. "Yeah. I'm good."

He isn't.

The moment Carson starts securing the brace around his neck, Natasha sees his stress levels go through the roof. She's pushing away from the wall before she even realizes it. Singer is moving closer as well. Probably to haul Carson out of the way should it become necessary. Natasha will get the kid, because even if Clint doesn't resort to violence, a panicked escape attempt might result in collateral damage.

Carson apparently picks up on Clint's distress, too, because she stops in mid-motion. "You okay?"

"No," he says hoarsely. His breath has has gone harsh and wheezing again. His nails make a dry sound against the floor as he clenches his hands into fists. His eyes flit over to Natasha.

"Okay. Okay. Agent Barton, it's okay," Carson says as she efficiently undoes the Velcro strap she fastened, then lifts her hands where he can see them.

Smart woman.

"Deep breath. Take a deep breath. I'm not going to do anything."

It takes a few minutes, but Clint finally relaxes a little and Natasha returns to her wall.

Carson sits back on her heels. "I understand that this isn't something you want to do right now, but it's important. You could have a neck injury, and you might not even realize it at this point."

"I don't."

"Like I said, you might not even realize it."

"There's nothing wrong with my neck," he insists hoarsely. His voice is still tight, but his breathing has left hyperventilation territory.

"How about head straps? Nothing around the neck." She points at the gurney by the door. "I'm thinking those orange things. They go on the sides of your head, and—"

"Doc, I know what they are and where they go."

"Okay." She waits a beat. "So? Go or no go?"

Clint reluctantly agrees to being strapped down on the spine board, and Natasha breathes a sigh of relief. At least she doesn't have to worry about a paraplegic Clint. There are plenty of other things to worry about right now, but that's a big one, and she's happy to put it to rest. He gets an IV catheter in his hand. Fluids, Carson tells him as she tapes it down and connects the IV bag. She beckons Natasha over and tells her to hold it.

More questions are fired at Clint as they work around him. Breathing still okay? Yeah. Any difficulty swallowing? A little. Hurts. Carson shines a light down his throat. Any coughing? Yes. Did you lose consciousness at any time? Yes. More than once? Yes. How many times? Don't know. For how long? Don't know.

Eventually, they wrap things up and lift Clint onto the gurney. They haven't gotten more than a few steps down the corridor when he makes a choked noise.

"Sick," he groans. "Gonna be sick."

The medics move immediately. Natasha feels desperately useless as she stands back and watches them log roll her partner to his side as he vomits. Clint moans pitifully when they roll him back. Carson lets him catch his breath.

"Let me know when you're okay to continue. Take your time."

Clint squeezes his eyes shut. "Can you check back in June, Doc?"

Carson checks the straps of the head brace. "July okay? I'm getting married in June and I'd rather not have to take a day out of the preps or my Hawaiian honey moon to return to this god-forsaken place."

"No can do. Washing my hair in July," he mumbles. He's starting to sound distant and Natasha suspects there's some kind of light sedative in the drip. She hopes there is.

"Bummer. Okay, my final offer is…" Carson checks her watch. "Three minutes. How does that sound?"

"Not as good as June."

Carson just pats his arm and three minutes later, on the dot, they get moving again.

It's a long, silent flight. Clint sleeps most of it, but Natasha stays by his side. She'd be lying if she said it was all for him.


	3. Chapter 3

Phil is stuck in the chaos that is the New Jersey turnpike after an accident when his phone chimes. He has already gotten the preliminary report on Clint's condition, so it is with some trepidation he pulls up Natasha's message.

Spine ok.

He allows himself a breath of relief.

They release Clint after 24 hours of observation, and Phil waits patiently as the doctors caution him about possible after-effects and reluctantly hand over the discharge papers for him to sign. Clint is quiet during the ride to the tower, looking out the side window with his elbow propped up against the door, cheek resting against his hand. His knee bounces restlessly, and Phil knows it's just his brain over-clocking his body out of sheer fatigue. He had reported that he hadn't gotten much sleep during the two days leading up to his extraction, and he rarely sleeps well in Medical, so he's running on fumes here.

"Have you heard from Romanoff?" Clint asks as they pull into the underground garage. His voice is still raspy.

"She applied for leave. I approved it."

"You know where she went?"

"I think she is still in town, but other than that I don't know."

They're welcomed back by JARVIS, who informs them that the upper part of the elevator shaft is under maintenance, and that they will have to transfer to the south elevator at the common floor. Clint leans his back against the one mirrored wall of the elevator like it's the only thing keeping him upright. Phil wonders if it's on purpose, if he doesn't want be reminded of the state of his eyes. Clint's eyesight is unaffected, and Phil knows it doesn't hurt, but he also knows Clint is deeply disturbed by by the solid red in the whites of his eyes. The doctors had assured him that no long-term damage had been done and that it would clear up in a week or so, but Phil can sympathize. It looks pretty gruesome. He glances over at Clint and sees gaze stuck on the floor level display. He stares blankly at the numbers that flicker by, and at this point Phil doesn't know if he's actually processing what he sees. The subdued ding when they reach the common floor seems to rouse Clint a little, because he blinks and shakes his head before shuffling out of the elevator. He's favoring his ankle. Phil is not surprised, the dark bruising that has slowly spread down the side of Clint's foot is spectacular.

"Almost there. Thank god," Clint mumbles. "I'm gonna marry my bed, Coulson. Seriously. I'm gonna make an honest woman out of her."

Stark wanders in, a wrench in one hand, a bottle of Windex in the other. "Did you bring food?"

Clint drops his bag on the floor by his boots and looks throughly confused. "Was I supposed to?"

Stark sighs sadly. "No one ever brings food." He starts walking away, then does a double take. "Holy fuck." He steps in close and peers at Clint's eyes. "You look like an extra from 'Thriller'." Then his expression turns into one of horror, and Phil knows he just spotted the dark rope burns and bruises around his neck. "Shit, Barton." Stark reaches out to touch, but stops. "What the hell happened to you?"

"What can I say?" Clint shrugs and shifts a little. The casual movement puts some space between himself and Stark. "The raw power of my animal attraction makes the ladies go crazy."

Stark looks sick. "Yeah. Full frontal crazy, from the looks of it. You okay?"

Clint gives Stark a colorless smile. "Fine, just tired as hell."

Stark looks doubtful. "Do me a favor, Barton, let me know if I ever come within a few hundred feet of your 'ladies'." His eyes go hard. "Seriously. Let me know, okay?"

Clint's lips quirk. "Aw, you gonna defend my honor?"

Stark crosses his arms haughtily. It looks a bit awkward with the items in his hands. "Please. My armor may be shiny, but Lancelot I'm not. The weapons. Dear god. I wouldn't be caught dead wielding something that medieval. No offense, Robin."

"None taken." Clint picks up his bag. It looks like it weighs ten times as much as Phil knows it does. "See you in a few days, Stark. I'm gonna go hibernate."

*' *' *'

"You should eat something," Phil tells Clint.

"I know. I will." Clint leans tiredly against his kitchen counter, but makes no move to get something from the fridge or any of his cabinets. He rubs at his eyes, then groans and tilts his head right with a grimace, then left, like he's got a stiff neck. Which he most likely has.

"Do you need anything?"

Clint sighs and pushes away from the counter. "Sleep."

"Then I will let you get to it." Phil shows him the folder he's held onto. "I figured you might want to read this later. It's what we have on your hosts. It's not much, but we are working on it."

Clint doesn't reach of the folder, so Phil puts it on the table. It's thin. Everything they know about the people who took him covers less than two pages, double spaced. They haven't been able to find out the specific identities of the two individuals who had spent quality time with Clint at the end, either. They have a few leads, but nothing solid.

"Okay. Thanks." Clint trails him into the open living room but doesn't get further than the couch. He slumps down, leans his head back and closes his eyes. "And thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome. You have the usual regulation prescribed stand-down days to catch up on your sleep. Report back to Medical on Wednesday. Then come see me."

Clint nods.

"Wednesday," Phil repeats more forcefully, because he suspects that without major injuries it will take Clint about forty-eight hours to recover enough to get bored and antsy and show up at Shield. If nothing else than to pester Phil. He pulls the door open and looks over his shoulder at his drifting agent. "And Barton?"

"Mmm?"

"Sleep in your actual bed. Not on the couch."

Phil sees Clint sketch a sloppy salute without opening his eyes. "Roger, wilco, over and out."

Phil sighs. Right. There's no way Clint is going to move from that couch now that he's sat down. He closes the door and heads back. "Get your ass off that couch, Barton," he orders.

"But it's super comfy," Clint moans plaintively.

"I'm sure, but do you really think it's appropriate for you to sleep with another piece of furniture this close to the wedding. Your bride-to-be might take offense."

Clint frowns, then cracks one eye open. "Huh?"

Phil slides an arm under Clint's and drags him up with a grunt. "Never mind. Come on, Agent. Up, up, up."

Clint actually walks under his own steam to his bedroom. He stops by the bed, stares at it for a moment, then falls face first into it.

"Boots," Phil says.

"The boots can go fuck themselves," Clint informs him gravely and turns his face into the pillow.

Phil shrugs mentally. If Clint wants to sleep with a quarry worth of gravel and sand in his bed, he's free to do so. "Good night, Barton."

"You put me to bed, aren't you gonna read me a bed-time story?" he asks, his voice muffled.

Phil huffs out a laugh. "If you want."

"I want."

"Okay. How about this one. Once upon a time there was an Agent who always got himself into trouble. Then he went to sleep. The end."

"I like the last part," Clint mumbles.

Phil turns out the light, and Clint is snoring softly in a matter of seconds.

*' *' *'

Phil sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose when the elevator doesn't travel to the garage as he had requested, but instead stops at the common floor again. He can guess what is waiting.

"Jesus, Coulson! What the hell happened?"

Phil presses the button again, but Stark slaps his palm against the doors and stops them from closing.

"You know I can't give any details about a Shield operation, Stark."

"Yeah, but that—" Stark waves his hand upwards, presumably towards Clint's floor. "That looked like he almost didn't make it home."

Phil meets his eyes straight on. "It is an unfortunate risk, and one they take every single time they head out."

Stark stares at him hard, then shakes his head with a cold sound. "You know, every now and again it would be nice to see that you're actually human. Like, maybe you could give a hint of concern for your people. For the ones who risk their lives for you again and again and again."

Phil knows he's suddenly radiating something dangerous, because Stark starts fidgeting within seconds.

"I want you to listen very carefully, Stark," he says quietly and takes a step closer. Stark looks like he wants to back away, but to his credit he stands his ground. "I have known Barton for fifteen years, Romanoff twelve. I have watched them grow out of their backgrounds and into who they are today. I send them out to do things that have to be done that no one wants to know about, and every single time I know there's a risk that they'll come back injured. Or not at all. You think I don't care when they go dark for days, for weeks during a high-risk op? When they come back like this?"

There is so much he could tell Stark. Like the countless times he's sat vigil for one or both of them in Medical, how he feels heavy with relief every time they walk into his office after an op. He wants to tell him how he has kept them out of the firing line of Shield politics and squeamish Washington politicians who don't want to see the real-life side of the decisions they make in their clean, well-lit offices. How he makes sure they eat and find a bed when they're too tired to consciously do either, how he has supported them, comforted them to the extent that they will accept comfort. How he's seen them childishly happy and seen them mourning, seen them proud and shamed, at their best and their worst.

But he says none of these things, because something else he has always done is protect their secrets and their privacy.

"He knows the risks," Natasha says behind Tony, and he startles badly.

"Jesus Christ!" Stark puts his hand over his chest. Phil suspects he's grateful for the interruption, because it gives him an excuse to move away from Phil without it looking like he's backing down. "I distinctly remember getting you a bell to wear."

"And I distinctly remember telling you where to shove it."

"JARVIS, order Ms. Ninja a box of two hundred cat bells."

"Right away, Sir."

She gives Stark a blithe smile. "Leave them in my bed again and I will tie every single one to your balls with razor wire."

"Uh, JARVIS, belay that order."

"Yes, Sir. Wise choice, if I may say so."

"He accepts the risks," Natasha repeats. "And he'll be fine. He's tough."

"I know he's tough, that's not my point! He's tougher than tough, he's fucking bedrock—"

"Then what is your point?" she asks coolly, and Phil can see anger simmering beneath the blank façade of calm. She takes offense to anyone questioning his commitment to the both of them, and seeing it makes him feel inappropriately touched. He knows he shouldn't have favorites, it's not professional, but there it is, there's a bond between the three of them that's different from any he has had with other agents over the years.

Stark starts to say something, then apparently realizes he's skating on _very_ thin ice here. He glares at Natasha, then spins on his heel and stalks away, cursing fucking Shield and every fucking covert spy organization in the whole fucking universe.

Natasha steps into the elevator.

"Would it be possible to get to the garage this time, JARVIS?" Phil asks mildly.

"Of course, Master Coulson. I apologize for the inconvenience. Sir requested that you pay the common floor a visit on your way out."

"Garage, JARVIS," he repeats tiredly.

The elevator starts moving.

"How is your vacation?" Phil asks, eyes forward.

"Frustrating. I really feel like traveling, but I can't make up my mind where to go." Out of the corner of his eye he sees her tilt her head in his direction. "Any suggestions?"

Phil thinks of what Clint told them, about the rope marks around his throat, about how his voice had gone tight and brittle when he'd told them it had all been for fun. They reach the garage and the doors open smoothly. He steps out. Natasha doesn't.

"I hear the weather is nice in Brazil this time of year," he says. "Perhaps you could find something interesting to do in Curitiba."

She nods slowly. "I'll look into that. Thanks."

"Keep in mind the weather reports might be unreliable."

"Aren't they always?" She looks pensive for a moment. "I'm thinking I should get Barton something. A souvenir of some kind."

"He'd probably appreciate a nice bottle of Cachaça."

There's a cold little tilt to her lips as she presses the elevator button and the doors slide shut between them.

*' *' *'

Natasha comes back without souvenirs. Curitiba was a dead end.

*' *' *'

Phil spots the two of them in the crowded cafeteria, seated at a table in the back. As he makes his way towards them, he sees Clint make an exasperated gesture with both hands at Natasha. She watches him calmly, chewing a carrot stick. Phil is close enough that when Clint shoves the chair back and gets to his feet he hears the hissed 'For fuck's sake, Nat!' Clint grabs his tray and walks away from the table. A curt "Boss" is the only acknowledgement Phil gets as they pass each other.

Phil slides in across Natasha.

"What's going on?"

"He's trying to get me to work on you so he can get back to active duty. Said he's tired of havin to read about other people's fuck-ups."

Phil nods. Clint has been doing tactical postmortems on ops having gone seriously sideways for the past month.

"Is he ready to go back?

"That's not my call to make," she tells him neutrally and spears an overcooked piece of broccoli with her fork.

"Would you go out with him?"

She looks up from her food. "Right now? No."

"Why?"

"Have you ever seen a narcoleptic hummingbird?"

"No."

"Neither have I, but I imagine it must be behaving a lot like Barton right now, the way he swings between hyper and falling down-tired. She points her fork after her departing partner. "That? Is a disaster waiting to happen if you put him out there."

Phil nods. Natasha is verifying what he already knows, and that is that Clint needs more time. He unwraps his juice box, sticks the straw into the little hole. "Are you concerned?"

"No. He'll be fine. He just needs to work it out in his head. Kill a few hundred targets down on the range, go on a bender, find a one-night stand or two. He'll be fine," she repeats and steals Phil's sugar cookie.

*' *' *'

Never let it be said that Natasha Romanoff doesn't know her partner well. Range, check. Alcohol, check. One-night stands, check. Clint is always discreet and careful, and his choice of coping behavior is harmless in light of what some agents indulge in, so Phil doesn't interfere. He knows Natasha keeps an eye on him, too, and will kick the crap out of him if she suspects it's getting out of hand. She kicks the crap out of him regularly, anyway, on the mats in the gym. She holds back even less than she usually does, which forces Clint to go all out, too. It lets him work a lot of frustration and anger out of his system. TLC Romanoff style.

Weeks tick by and Clint evens out. He starts sleeping better, stops scaring newbies with his moody behavior and slips back into his usual easygoing self. Phil notices that he plays with the collar of his shirt a lot, running his fingers under it like it's uncomfortable against his skin. He doesn't zip his jacket up all the way. Doesn't keep his earbuds hanging around his neck like he usually does when he comes from the gym. It's probably nothing to worry about, but Phil talks to the psychology team about it, and is told to just keep an eye on it and not worry unless it escalates.

It doesn't and Phil eventually puts him back in the field.

Clint mellows even further.

*' *' *'

Clint and Natasha come back from their first joint op, and Phil snags Natasha directly after the debrief.

"Nothing to report," she says before he has a chance to ask. "He's focused and alert, his head is in the right place."

"Glad to hear that."

She nods and walks away, towards a shower and some food, no doubt. Phil heads towards his office and the paperwork waiting for him there. He agrees mostly with her assessment. He had pulled up the live feed on a monitor as he worked on the personnel assessments that had been building up on his desk over the past week. There had been the same wired banter as usual going between Clint and the rest of the guys. And just as usual, it had turned into an intensely focused silence the moment the announcement came that they were approaching the LZ.

The op had gone off without a hitch, and they'd returned to the jet without injuries.

Clint had kept running his fingers under the strap of his quiver where it rested at the junction between the shoulder and the neck. Phil knows Natasha had seen it, too.

*' *' *'

Clint gets properly back into the swing of things. Most of the compulsive fiddling with anything around or near his neck has stopped. He is part of taking down a large-scale drug operation in Bergen, Norway. He goes to Laos and has to temp as a pilot when the assigned one takes a bullet to the head in mid-flight over a hot zone. The hydraulics are shot to hell, but it's a good landing. In the sense that they walk away from it. Wade away, rather, because they land in the middle of a remote mangrove area in northern Thailand. When they are picked up all of them are covered with mosquito and leach bites, and Clint is decidedly unimpressed with life. A month later he comes back from a training exercise with his left boot nowhere to be seen. He hobbles into Medical with his arm over Christie's shoulder for support. There's a bloody field dressing around his foot. Clint groans when Christie shows Phil what brought down the mighty Hawkeye. A rusty two-inch nail. Clint groans even louder when he realizes he's going to need a tetanus booster shot.

All is good. Between ops and minor injuries Clint helps out with hand-to-hand combat training. He's a good teacher, Phil has always known that. He builds confidence in those who need it, and cheerfully beats the arrogance out of those who come in with an attitude in order to make them realize they don't know shit.

Five months after Natasha found him in that cell one of the junior agents gets an arm around his throat in an exercise that they have practiced during three sessions already, and Clint almost kills the kid.


	4. Chapter 4

Over the next week Clint slides backwards so fast he's surprised he doesn't fall on his ass, and he's angry, so damn angry. With the world for never getting tired of pouring crap on his head, with himself for not managing to get a handle on this latest batch of said crap. He knows it's a textbook reaction, he _knows_ that, Shield makes their agents sit through classes upon classes on stress and depression and trauma reactions on an annual basis, but he can't help feel that he's better than that, that he should be past it by now.

It's past nine in the evening and the rain is beating against the windows like it wants to come inside when there's a knock on his door. Clint opens and finds a thoroughly drenched Natasha on his doorstep.

She hands him a white plastic bag. "Roughed up any rookies lately?"

Sensitivity, thy name is Romanoff.

She sidles past him and shakes her head like a wet dog. Droplets fly everywhere. "It's raining," she tells him, like it's not the most obvious thing in the world.

He peers into the bag and a whiff of food hits him. She pushes past him in the narrow hallway and detours to the small linen closet by the bathroom door to grab a towel before heading to the kitchen. He hasn't seen her in almost three weeks, and notes the tan, the streaks of highlights in her hair.

"Poolside job?"

"Yacht, actually. Monaco. It was boring."

"Oh, you poor, poor thing. You must have been absolutely miserable."

She shrugs out of her dripping jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair. "How do you feel about it?"

"About you getting nothing but cush jobs while I have to schlepp around here? I feel like Cinderella."

The kitchen fills with the smell of food as he unpacks the bag. Egg drop soup and General Tso's chicken for him, Wonton soup and crab Rangoon for her. He licks his fingers clean of sweet, sticky sauce that has leaked.

"About Coulson grounding you."

Clint sighs. He really doesn't want to talk about it. He wants to eat greasy Chinese food and watch B-movies and just… be.

"It was the right thing to do," he says, and hopes that will be the end of it.

"Yes," she agrees calmly. "It was the right thing to do. But that's not what I asked. I asked how you felt about it."

"How do you think I feel?" he snaps, because god, that's a stupid-ass question and he's sick and tired of it.

"I think you feel like shit," she tells him. "I think you're beating yourself up about it."

He stabs a pair of chopsticks into one of the rice cartons. "Yeah, no, correction," he mutters. "I beat Greene up." He slumps down on one of the chairs.

"He'll live," she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"I was about to kill him!"

"Don't be a drama queen, Barton. You broke his arm, not his spine."

It hadn't taken security more two minutes to arrive at the gym, and Clint had been escorted first to a room without windows that he knows is just a step above a holding cell, then a while later to another windowless room in the psych facility. Medical staff had checked him over, done simple neurological tests and relieved him of about two-thirds of his blood volume to test for drugs and pathogens before leaving him alone in a third room. It had a soothing color scheme and absolutely nothing that could be used to do harm. To himself or to anyone else. He had been pretty sure the door hadn't been locked. He had also been equally sure that armed guards were stationed out there, somewhere near.

The verdict when the initial rounds of assessments had finished later had been that Clint had not been hopped up on PCP, had not suffered a mental breakdown or a psychotic break, and further, no evidence had been found that he was of any danger to himself or the people around him (provided he refrained from asking people to put him in a headlock, Doctor Han had said wryly).

It had been – surprise, surprise – a flashback, a delayed stress-reaction with an unfortunate outcome. He had been released into Phil's care, and the man had taken him home. And off active duty, effective immediately, duration TBD pending further assessments.

Clint pulls the soup container closer and peels the lid off. "I could have killed him. So very, very easily.

"But you _didn't_." She sits down across from him. "Apologize. Make nice. Tell him what they did to you, why you reacted the way you did." She nimbly fishes out one of her dumplings with her chop sticks and takes a bite. "Give him a reason to feel empathy towards you. It's a great facilitator when it comes to forgiveness."

Clint knows that the words 'calculating' and 'manipulative' are words often spoken in the same sentence as 'Black Widow', and yeah, they are fitting. Natasha is both of those things. It's who she is. Hell, it's who _he_ is. They do that shit for a living, predicting and gauging and quantifying actions and reactions in order to reach their objectives, and after this long it's not possible to completely leave it behind, it colors everything they do.

"Coulson told me three of them dropped out of the program," she tells him and nimbly fishes a dumpling out of the box with her chopsticks.

He stares at her for a moment, then buries his face in his hands. "God," he groans."You always know just the right thing to say to make me feel better."

"If they quit because they saw someone break an arm, they weren't going to make it anyway."

"You don't know that. One of those three could have been the next… I don't know, Fury. Or Coulson. Or May."

"Doubtful," she says, and raps her chopsticks painfully across his knuckles when he goes to take one of her dumplings. "Hands off my puffs."

"Shrew," he mutters under his breath and shakes his hand out.

Clint sits back and starts decimating his chicken, but now that his thoughts have been neatly lined up in that particular direction, it's hard to let them go.

He has gone over the whole thing again and again in his head. He'd been the demonstration victim probably twenty times to show how to get out of a choke hold. He had paired off with the rookies when they were uneven numbers to let them practice both holding such a hold and how to get out of it. It had been fine. That particular time he'd told Greene to get to it, had offered his back to let the kid get a good grip. It had been fine. _Fine_. Then he'd felt the pressure over his throat and everything around him had gone sharp and loud and dissonant, and his teacher mind had clocked out.

He'd tumbled into a defensive spin that had ended with Green getting two fractures to his left arm, a pretty decent concussion and a face full of someone Clint doesn't let out to play in polite company for a goddamn reason.

"It would have been so easy, I would just have had to…" He makes a small twist-snap motion with his hand. He stares at it for a moment then drops it in his lap.

Natasha just nods, but doesn't pick up the thread, and he's grateful, because that might mean she's done with that particular subject for the time being. He's under no illusions that it won't come up again, but maybe he's in the clear tonight.

She tells him about the Monaco job. About the Tony Stark-wannabe who had a fraction of Stark's money and none of his brains, and who had been more than happy to act as a middle man (fall guy, really) for some very shady arms dealers in exchange for the opportunity to rub shoulders with the rich and beautiful in Monaco. She snorts when she tells him that she basically just had to bat her false lashes at the guy to get invited on-board his yacht for a few days. He had a thing for roughing his dates up, and now that she says it he can see a hint of bruising on her cheekbone under her makeup. She had torched said yacht when she left, just on principle, and Clint nods approvingly.

It's comfortable and Clint relaxes further as they polish off their food.

"Wanna Netflix something?" he asks.

"If I get to choose," she says and wipes her lips with the napkin.

"Knock yourself out. Just, no goddamn John Cusack, okay?" Clint gets to his feet with a groan, because god, the tension that seems to have taken up permanent residence in his back and shoulders over the past weeks is _painful_.

"Want me to work out a few kinks?"

He looks up to find her watching him, gauging his level of discomfort, probably.

He hesitates. Natasha's massages are usually pleasant in the same way a knee to the kidneys is, but she gets tension out of his muscles like no one's business, so maybe the pain will be worth it in the long run.

"Yeah, okay," he finally decides. "That would be good."

Even as he says the words, he regrets it, because suddenly his brain gives him a sense preview of her hands sliding over his shoulders, over his traps towards the nape of his neck. Sudden coldness blooms under his skin. Shit. It's too late to back out now. He's got some pride, after all.

"I'll wait on the couch," she says and leaves him in the kitchen with the cartons and napkins and spilled rice and bowls.

He swallows the dryness from his throat and rubs a hand down his arm. "You could offer to help clean up, you know," he calls after her.

"Correct. I could." The TV comes on.

He rolls his eyes at the empty doorway and gets to cleaning up. By the time he is done he has managed to convince himself that a massage will be fine. First of all, it's a _massage_. Second, it's _Natasha_. It's gonna be fine.

He joins her in the small living room. "Where do you want me, baby?"

Natasha points to the floor in front of the TV. Clint pushes the coffee table out of the way and gets down on his stomach. He refuses to groan, despite feeling like he's approximately three hundred years old.

She straddles his hips and pulls his t-shirt out of his jeans. He damn near gives a squeak when her hands touch the small of his back. "Shit," he grouses. "Would it kill you to warm your hands up a little?" He catches her wrists as she goes to slide her sub-zero digits in under him. "Natasha, I swear to God, will toss you out on your scrawny ass if you even think about it. I am not your personal space heater."

"But you're such a good one," she whines, but pulls her wrists out of his grip. He hears her rub her hands together. "Get rid of the t-shirt," she tells him.

He complies and she runs her only-slightly-warmer hands up along his back, then down again. Clint makes himself comfortable, cheek resting on his folded hands as she prods and presses at his lower back.

She makes a tsk'ing sound. "How much pain are you in?"

"It's not so bad," he starts to say, but just then her fingers finds a particularly sore spot and the sentence dies in a sharp inhalation of air. "Jesus," he hisses as she goes to town on his muscles.

"Not so bad, huh?" She keeps finding new spots that protest very loudly at being disturbed.

'Fuck' quickly becomes his mantra, gritted out past clenched teeth. He's pretty sure he hears her chuckle at some point. He can do this, he tells himself. It's worth it, because when she's satisfied with her torture session, her hands will slow down and her touch will go from ruthlessly utilitarian to something lighter and gentler that never fails to make Clint feel like he's melting into the floor.

But right now that part seems to be far in the future. So very, very, very far.

"Shit," he groans and clenches his hands into fists. "The way you're tenderizing me kinda gives me that feeling you're planning on throwing me on the grill and eating me."

"Well, I _am_ a Black Widow." She must realize what kind of opening she just handed him, because she digs her fingers into his muscles just a little harder. "Don't say it," she warns.

He ignores her. "Black Widows eat their partners after mating. Does this mean there's sex in my imminent fu-?"

She presses both thumbs into a pressure point, and oh, god, that's pain on a completely different level.

"I'm sorry," she says sweetly. "Does that hurt?"

"No, no," he wheezes when he manages to speak, "I just sound like a wounded Chihuahua when I'm enjoying myself."

She laughs evilly. Her strong fingers knead and press, and he reminds himself that this is what he needs. She starts with his lower back and methodically works through the muscles there. Clint knows she's soon going to move further up, and he hates himself for the feeling of unease that grows under his skin as time passes.

She doesn't touch his neck, just runs her hands lightly over his traps every now and again, doesn't linger, just just for a moment before going back to kneading the knots out of his back. The room goes quiet, save for the drone of the TV, and the muscles on his back must either have started to loosen up, or she has caused spinal damage, because they eventually stop crying bloody murder at each touch. Then Natasha runs her thumbs firmly up both sides of his spine, starting low and following the ridge up towards his shoulders, towards his neck, and shit, shit, Clint tenses up, he can't help it.

He knows there's no way in hell she missed that, and it's verified a moment later when her hands come to a stop against his skin. He squeezes his eyes shut and fights the need to reach up and pull them away from his body, away from the trickle of cold anxiety that is threatening to grow into a river under his skin, drowning reason and logic. She shifts a little, and her weight against him turns from familiar and safe to claustrophobic, and he can't catch his breath. He abruptly pushes up on his hands and knees, dislodging Natasha in the process.

"Clint. You're okay. It's just me. Slowly, breathe slowly."

He tries, honestly, he really tries, but his body isn't playing along. "I'm okay," he manages. "I'm okay." The food sits sickly in his tight stomach.

It takes maybe a minute before he gets it under control, and by then he hates himself. He gets to his feet and stumbles to the couch and sits down heavily. With a groans he puts his elbows on his knees and bows his head, interlacing his fingers behind his neck. Fuck. What the hell is wrong with him? It's Natasha. _Natasha_ , for god's sake.

"Maybe we should call it a night?" she suggests easily, and there's nothing in her voice that speaks of pity, and it makes him feel a little better, like maybe he can pretend this isn't such a big deal.

"Yeah," he says without lifting his eyes from the floor between his feet.

"Do you need me to stay?"

"No."

"Barton, I know you can't help being a moron sometimes, so let me put it another way. Do you _want_ me to stay?"

He closes his eyes. She knows him so well, because no, he doesn't need her to stay, but dear god, yes, he _wants_ her to.

He nods.

Her hand brushes lightly over his shoulder, then gives him a push that almost puts him on his side. "You are such an idiot."


	5. Chapter 5

Clint's knees hit the floor. _I'll move_ , he tries to tell them, but he can't, the rush of panic tears the words away, and there's no air. No air. He knows the drill, he has to move, he's not allowed to stop, but there's nowhere to go, he's trapped, surrounded on all sides by darkness and hard surfaces and hands. Hands, there are hands on him. They'll steal his air, they'll take it and won't give it back, and he's going to die. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. He can't-

"Clint, stop. Stop."

Their hands on him turn into Natasha's. Her distorted voice barely lifts over the buzzing in his head. He feels his nails scrabbling over the skin at his throat, scratching, clawing, and he can't make himself stop, because the rope's gonna tighten, it's gonna— _Get it off. Natasha, get it off._

"Stop that, there's nothing there." Natasha's fingers tighten around his, pulls them away. "Listen to me. Clint, _listen_." Her voice becomes more substantial, takes familiar shape and form. "There's nothing there. You can breathe."

He shakes his head. No, he can't, there's no air, not enough room in his lungs and it feels like he's sinking.

"Breathe. You're fine. There's no one else here, just me."

Her fingers tighten around his wrists. The pressure becomes a welcome focal point, grounding him in the here and now, and the line between dream and reality slowly starts to crystalize. His bedroom. He's in his own bedroom, on the floor next to the bed, and god, he can breathe. He's safe, he's not going to be made to crawl, not going to be made to choose which one of them who will hurt him next. The tears hit as the relief registers for real. Natasha shifts and pulls him into a loose embrace, and Clint kind of topples against her.

"You can breathe," Natasha says quietly.

"I can breathe," he sobs, and his voice hitches so bad the words are partially lost. "I can breathe. I can." He keeps repeating it, over and over, reminding himself, because it's still so real in his head, so close and so horrible.

The crying spell is achingly intense. He hasn't come apart like this since after Loki, and he feels wrung out and cold when it finally dies down. The dark room falls silent around them and Clint just focuses on matching the cadence of her breathing. It's quite a while before the steady in and out becomes natural again, before it becomes something he doesn't have to force.

"You back with me?" she asks against his hair, her voice low and gentle.

"All present and accounted for," he mumbles.

She scratches her nails lightly against his scalp and lets him collect himself a few more minutes.

"Sorry," he mumbles hoarsely when he has recovered enough for embarrassment to start rearing its head. He tries to sit up, but Natasha doesn't let go, and honestly, he doesn't want to move, so he only puts up token resistance before relaxing back against her.

She shifts against him, fits them more comfortably against the side of the bed. "Bulgaria, I assume", she says when she's satisfied with their positions.

He nods.

"Looked like a bad one."

"Yeah."

"Is it like this a lot?"

"Define a lot."

She doesn't answer, doesn't engage in the deflection.

He sighs. "Lately it's been… yeah, it's been a lot." He doesn't say almost every night, but he knows she can hear the truth underneath his words.

"Were you having frequent nightmares before Greene?"

"No. It was fine, I was sleeping fine."

"So, what happened in the gym?"

"Don't tell me you haven't read the reports."

"I don't have access."

He snorts tiredly. "Like that has ever stopped you before."

"Point," she concedes. "Yes, I've read the reports, but I meant what happened in here." She taps the side of his head lightly.

He peels himself off her, and this time she lets him. He leans back against the bed and pulls his knees up, rests his elbows on them. "I don't know." It's the truth. It had been as much of a surprise to him as it had been to the people around him. "I mean, I had probably twenty people try out that move on me, and it was fine. You know I would have tapped out if anything had felt off. It was fine. It really was. Then Greene happened…" He scrubs his hands over his face. "Then _I_ happened to Greene, and... I just don't know, Nat."

The whole headlock thing is an indisputable factor, but the whole week since it happened he's been trying to figure out why he flipped out on Greene and not on any of the other junior agents in the class who had tried that hold on him. Underwood and Lisp are about the same size as One, and their dialects hail from the same general area. Pellot actually looks a little like Two, and he sure has the size to match, but nope, Clint had lost it with Greene. Greene, who doesn't look anything like his captors, doesn't sound like them, doesn't move or do anything else like them.

"I don't know," he says again.

Natasha pats him on the arm. "Let's get back into bed," she suggests, and Clint is more than happy to get off the floor and climb back under the still warm covers.

"You okay?" she asks when they've both settled down and the room is quiet once again.

"Yeah. Sorry for waking you. You should go back to sleep."

"So should you. Will you be able to?"

Despite the exhaustion after his emotional meltdown, a stubborn unease hums in his chest and falling back into another one of those dreams doesn't appeal one bit at the moment. "Probably not," he admits. "Not for a while."

"Want to watch some TV?"

He shakes his head. "Go back to sleep, Nat."

She's silent for so long that he starts thinking she's taken his suggestion, but then she speaks. "It's not the first time someone has reacted badly after something like that."

"I know."

"It's not even the first time you have wigged out. Remember the vending machine-incident?"

He groans. "I thought we agreed we weren't ever going to mention that again."

"I recall no such agreement," she says lightly. Her tone turns serious again. "It's not the first time, Clint. And it won't be the last time that someone's reactions get the better of them.

"I know, but that doesn't make me feel better. I flipped out. On my home turf. Surrounded by newbies who pose about as much a threat to me as cotton candy." He turns on his side and faces her in the dark. It takes a while to convince himself to speak the words that have been rolling around in his head for the past few days. "Nat?"

"Yes?"

"I don't want to become Bliss."

The bedside lamp on her side comes on, spreading warm light in the room. She sits and looks down at him. "Bliss had other problems, you know that. You were triggered by a very specific thing, and Clint, let me take this opportunity to tell you again how utterly moronic it was to put yourself in that situation voluntarily."

"Thanks, it didn't quite stick the first thirty-six times," he mutters.

"You're not Bliss. You'll never be him. You're stronger."

"I know," he says, because he knows that's what she wants to hear. But what if he can't trust himself anymore, what if this is the time he snaps? What if he wakes up in restraints one day and is told he just killed another bunch of friends and co-workers? This time there will be no excuse. No Loki, just Clint Barton. Sure, he's been down bad paths before, but he can't help think that this feels more precarious, that the ground under his feet feels more slippery. That he's closer to the edge this time. It's just a feeling, but it scares the shit out of him.

"If it bothers you so much, then let's do something about it," she says.

He snorts. "Yeah. Sure. Let's do something about it. Cause it's just that simple."

Her hand comes to rest lightly on his arm. "I can do this for you," she says quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"I can help give you control."

"Control of what?" Clint squints up at her. "The nightmares?"

"Your reactions."

He narrows his eyes. "How?"

"I can take you there safely." She lies down next to him and brushes her hand up his chest until the tips of her fingers just touch the lower part of his Adam's apple. She lets them rest there, light as air. "I can give you the control you didn't have back there, I can make it… easier."

He pulls her hand away from his skin and stares at her, spending a few seconds trying to find some other possible meaning in her words than the one that jumps out at him. He comes up empty. "Are you talking about… about desensitization?"

She doesn't blink, just looks right back at him, so calm and so steady, and he can't stop the laugh that escapes.

"Jesus, Nat. You're kidding me, right?" He's half amused, half uneasy, because he knows she's dead serious. It's how she does things, she confronts her fears straight on, subdues them, takes control of them by brute force. It's not like Clint shies away from his fears, he just doesn't… go chasing after them unless they interfere with his job or fuck up his private life big time.

Both stipulations, he supposes, are true as of last week.

"I'm pretty sure mental health professionals frown upon mere mortals like us taking a swing at it on our own," he feels the need to point out. He realizes he's still holding on to her wrist and releases her.

"If it makes you feel any better I can let you call me Doctor Romanoff," she says with a small smile.

His throat feels dry. "For some reason I've always pictured you more as Naughty Nurse Romanoff than Doctor Romanoff."

He appreciates her attempt at levity, but just thinking about what she's offering makes part of him want to edge away from her, and god, that's fucked up, because it's not like she's going to wait for him to go to sleep, then ambush him and put him in a sleeper hold.

"I mean it, Clint. I can do this for you. Do you want me to?"

He shakes his head. "I really, _really_ don't."

"Okay," she says easily. She rolls over and turns off the light. He hears her settle down to sleep.

An hour later Clint is still staring at the dark ceiling.

'* '* '*

When Clint wakes up the next morning he's got a headache, but other than that he's okay. Well, okay-ish. Okay-er.

Natasha is her usual charming self (god knows how she manages to be sweet and mild and charming before lunch when she's under cover, because she sure as hell isn't when she is herself), and he's relieved that he feels nothing out of the ordinary when she grumpily fights him for the first cup of coffee. His discomfort from last night feels pale and frankly ridiculous in the glaring morning light.

Natasha takes off to parts unknown a few hours later, eliciting a promise from Clint that he won't hole up in his apartment. Eat, she tells him sternly. Take your goddamn sleeping pills if you need them. And if you get arrested, don't call me. The last is a standing instruction, an inside thing between them. She doesn't mean it. He knows he can call her any time, day or night, for any reason, and if she's at all able, she will answer. Or at least call back. Doesn't mean she's a pushover. He remembers Memphis, where that particular instruction originated. He had used his single phone call to call her, and she had answered. She had showed up in person to make sure he was okay, then left him to ponder his life choices in the county jail drunk tank overnight. She doesn't suffer fools easily.

He eats breakfast and decides that today is as good a day as any to try to talk to Greene again. The guy deserves an explanation, and Clint doesn't want hallway whispers about his kill ratio or head count or some throwback comment to his time as Loki's bitch to be the only thing he hears. So, he cleans himself up and calls Coulson to see if he can put him in contact with Greene.

Coulson texts ten minutes later and tells Clint to meet him in one hour. There's another text seconds after the first. _Bring coffee. Machine KIA._

'* '* '*

"Special Agent Barton."

Coulson walks into the empty break room, Greene at his heels. The kid's arm is in a sling, and one side of his face is still mottled green and yellow.

"Sir," Clint greets Coulson. "Greene."

Coulson nods in greeting and accepts the coffee cup Clint hands him. He takes a sip, and it's only from years of exposure to his micro-expressions that Clint catches the look of bliss that passes over his face. "Thank you," he tells Clint. "Now, you requested a meeting, and Agent Greene agreed."

"I appreciate it," Clint tells Greene, who stands half a step behind Coulson. Clint makes sure to keep his stance relaxed and offers a small smile.

Coulson puts his hand on Greene's good shoulder. "Remember, this is a voluntary meeting," he says, and it's clearly a reminder of something the two of them talked about before coming here. "You're free to leave at any time. You understand?"

Greene nods. "Yes, Sir."

Clint and Greene both watches Coulson retreat to the other side of the room where he pulls up his tablet and starts tapping away at it, clearly not going any further than that. Clint is pretty sure it's for Greene's sake, but he kinda appreciates it, too, because he feels stupidly nervous.

Greene plays with the cast padding that peeks out from under the cast. He looks at Clint, then over his shoulder at Coulson. He frowns a little as he turns back to Clint. "This feels really weird," he says.

Clint really wants to talk to Greene, but if he's uncomfortable Clint isn't going to force it. "Greene, if you're not okay with this, I—"

"No, not that. I mean Agent Coulson." Greene lowers his voice. "Feels like we're being chaperoned. I'm having flashbacks to Sister Mary-Helen telling us to leave room for Jesus." Clint huffs out a surprised laugh, and Green starts to smile in response, then he suddenly seems to remember that it was a flashback that resulted in their present situation. "Shit. I didn't—" He grimaces. "Sorry, Sir."

"No worries," Clint grins. The mental image of Coulson in a nun's habit is hilarious, and he suddenly feels better about this. "Thanks for seeing me," he says and sobers up. "I just want to apologize for…" he trails off and motions at Greene's arm and face.

"It's okay. Don't worry about it," Greene says, and wow, he is _a lot_ more chill than he had been when Clint had tried apologizing the first time. Clint is certain Coulson's presence has a lot to do with it. That, and maybe the fact that a few days have passed. Natasha was right. It had been too soon.

"How long are you stuck in the cast?" he asks.

Greene glances down at his arm. "At least another five weeks."

"Sorry. That sucks." Clint peers at all the names and dirty pictures drawn on the cast. "Has it started to itch yet?"

"Aw, man, I had just managed to stop thinking about it," Greene moans, then he must have realized that he just addressed a high-level operative as 'man', because he winces. "Sorry, Sir."

Clint waves it away, he has never cared much for being called that. "Save the Sirs for Agent Coulson."

"Yes, Sir. I mean, uh, Agent Barton."

"So, listen, I just want you to know that it wasn't you, it wasn't personal." Clint meets Coulson's eyes over Greene's shoulder. Coulson nods in encouragement. Clint had told him what why he wanted to talk to Greene. "I want you to understand what happened, okay? I'm not trying to make excuses or anything, but there are… reasons."

Greene nods.

"There was this op that—" Clint stops. "What's your clearance level?"

"Two."

"You realize there's a lot I can't tell you, right?"

Greene nods again. His eyes have taken on a look of barely suppressed excitement, the kind seen in newbies who think covert operations and big booms and Strike teams are so damn cool, the kind of look that fades quickly after seeing the reality of field work up close and personal. The boredom. The frustration. The exhaustion, the blood, the violence. The losses.

Clint tells Greene a very short, very censored and very sanitized version of the two last days of his Bulgaria job, and he feels self-conscious the whole time he talks. He said he wasn't trying to make excuses, but that's exactly what it feels like he's doing, like he's trying to minimize the brutality of his attack. He's not, he owns his actions. All of them.

" _Damn_ ," Greene mutters when Clint finishes. He looks a little sick even though Clint deliberately kept the details to a minimum.

Clint shrugs. "Shit happens."

Greene opens his mouth, then closes it before he says anything.

"Go on," Clint prods.

"It's just… I've been wondering. Was there something that, I don't know, set it off? You let half the group do the same thing I did, and that was alright."

"I don't know," Clint admits. "I really don't. It was fine. And then it wasn't."

"You ever had something like that happen to you before?"

"What? Have I ever gotten captured before? Yes. Have I ever been beaten or otherwise mistreated? Yes. Have I ever flipped out after the fact? Yes. But it usually doesn't end with people in a cast and with a concussion." He makes a face. "Sorry," he offers again.

"It's fine. I get it." Greene studies him. "So, how _does_ it usually end?"

Clint is saved by his phone going off, because that is more than he is comfortable sharing. He gives Greene a practiced grin. "That, I'm afraid, is waaaay above your clearance level."

He digs his phone from his jeans pocket and answers. It's Steve, wondering if he wants to tag along this weekend for a trek along the Appalachian Trail with him and Sam, and Clint takes the opportunity to finish off his conversation with Greene by putting a hand over the receiver and citing pressing Shield business. On the other side of the room, Coulson rolls his eyes at Clint behind Greene's back.

Before Clint walks away he mouths a final 'Sorry' to Greene, who looks not at all nervous any longer, more awed than anything else, and that wasn't something Clint had been aiming for here. He had just wanted to apologize and make sure Greene was doing okay. And from the look of things, the kid is dealing. Sure, looks can be deceiving, Clint of all people should know that, but at least Greene isn't watching Clint like he's expecting to be beaten to death if he as much as twitches.

He feels lighter and calmer than he has for days as he walks down the stairs. He tells Steve yes, he's in. After all, he did promise Natasha not to go all hermit on them, and spending some time away from the city sounds good.


End file.
